Greece party talks framed by unreality, punctuated by insults

Reuters
May 21, 2012

"Gentlemen, we are finished," said the patrician President, calling an abrupt halt to two hours of baiting and cat-calling between furious Greek politicians. "I'm starting to get upset myself now. We are finished."

The final collapse of talks to forge a new Greek government triggered repeat elections and fears of a chaotic exit from the euro zone. But it is the manner of that collapse, the acrimony and rancor cited by Karolos Papoulias, that bodes ill for efforts after June polls to pull Greece back from the brink.

"It was a complete madhouse," a source at the socialist PASOK party told Reuters after their leader, Evangelos Venizelos, returned from the May 17 showdown. "The discussion was unbelievable."

Similar florid accounts emerged from other quarters.

When conservative New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, 60, deserted a technocrat government to force May 6 elections, he was confident of a mandate for austerity measures demanded by European capitals for a 130 billion euro bailout package.

That calculation failed dramatically.

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